Professional Bull Riding – A Different Flavor of PBR

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Professional Bull Riding & The Built Ford Tough Series

The PBR (Professional Bull Riders), NOT to be confused with our impoverished generation’s favorite beer, is celebrating its 20th anniversary as the 2013 bull riding season kicks, bucks, and gores its way into full gallop. Though the institution has been around since the 80’s, this is the first year that it will be televised on CBS and CBS Sports. Gettin’ official! How does professional bull riding work, you ask? Simple – riders “ride” on a bucking (Check the videos below and prepare to get you mind blown!) bull for eight seconds. The rides are then judged based on both the rider’s and the bull’s performance. Naturally.

It could all be that simple, but this is America and why have one organization when you can convolutedly combine it into another league? This is where the Built Ford Tough Series comes in. It’s a league where the top 45 riders (determined by points and earnings) of the PBR compete in a thirty city tour. The fun started in at Madison Square Garden in January and has been moving across the U.S. of A. for the past two months. The season culminates (where many great things do) in Las Vegas on Oct. 23-27 at the PBR Built Ford Tough World Finals, where the winner will be given a cool $1 million.

Perhaps the Professional Bull Riding website puts it best when they say, “Professional bull riding is a fierce, rough, and grueling sport with roots deeply imbedded in American culture. It’s America’s original extreme sport.”